





TEMPTATION 


AND 


HOW TO MEET IT 


By 
G. SHERWOOD EDDY 


Association Press 
New York: 124 East 28rH Srreet 
Lonpon: 47 Parernosrer Row, E. C. 
1914 


CopyrIGHT, 1914, By 
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF 
YouncG MEN’s CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS 





TEMPTATION 
AND HOW TO MEET IT 


OD means us to have victory over sin. It was the 
keynote of the Old Testament, repeated in the 
New: “Ye shall be holy, for I am holy.” It were surely 
but a half salvation if Christ could forgive our past 
sin, but were unable to keep us from the power of sin 
in the present. We could hardly be called “more than 
conquerors” if we were to have victory only in heaven 
when all temptation is removed, if God were not able to 
keep us in the full face of temptation here and now in 
this present world, where victory is so sorely needed. 
Nor is this victory over sin some mountain peak experi- 
ence for exceptional men only. “This is the will of 
God, even your sanctification.” “And the God of peace 
sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit, soul and body 
be preserved entire without blame.....He.... 
asi. do tte CL bhess.vyi 233.24). lt then itis 
God’s purpose, why do we not always have this victory? 
Let us examine in turn the causes of our defeat, and 
the conditions of victory over sin. 


THREE MeEtTHops oF ATTACK. 


1. One chief cause of failure in all warfare is in the 
intelligence department underrating the strength of the 


3 


enemy, or being ignorant of his movements. From the 
Scriptures and our own experience we learn that sin has 
three favorite methods of attack—a sudden charge, a 
long-continued siege, or subtle strategy. 

In the first method, by a bold charge, the enemy tries 
to take us off our guard. He unexpectedly throws his 
whole power upon us at our weakest point. He tries to 
hurry us blindfold into sin. He finds some child of God 
who is not abiding in the citadel, who has neglected the 
means of communion with Christ, and has failed to put 
on the “whole armour of God.” By a sudden surprise 
the adversary succeeds in averting the believer’s gaze 
from the Saviour who alone is his source of power, and 
drawing attention to the moment’s pleasure, hurls him- 
self full force upon him. This is his usual method in 
sins of appetite and temper. There is an Esau with 
five hungry senses pampered with the uncontrolled 
habit of years. A mess of pottage is thrust upon him 
in his weakest moment. Surely he will not sell his 
whole inheritance for a mess of pottage! But for years 
he has given full rein to his appetites, and in a moment 
he has fallen. A single charge at Arcot and at Plassey 
turned the fate of India. Charge after charge with- 
stood at Waterloo saved Europe. How many a life 
has been wrecked by a single fall, because of an “advan- 
tage” gained previously by the enemy! 

2. A long-continued seige to discourage us is the 


4 


second method of attack. The effort here is “to wear 
out the saints,’ to break down our patience. We are 
harassed by evil suggestions, and then made to believe 
that temptation is sin and that we have already fallen. 
We are told that it is no use to hold out, that we have 
been mastered before, and that we shall fall again. 
Discouragement is a chief cause of defeat. An Elijah 
is led away from glorious warfare and victory to a 
juniper-tree, for want of a little “patience of faith” 
in his God who has never failed him. Saul is persuaded 
that it is no use to wait for Samuel and obey God’s 
word. So today some tired, disheartened servant of 
God, pressed on every side, with no victory in sight, is 
told “It is no use; give up.” In the last Chitral war 
in India officers were found dead almost in sight of 
their own lines. They had fallen, exhausted and dis- 
couraged, when they would have gained freedom and 
victory if they had but known how near help was and 
had pressed on a little further over the next ridge. 
It was a message of hope heliographed from the 
beleaguered garrison of Ladysmith that did much to 
turn the tide of war in South Africa. It was the brave 
defense in the Siege of Lucknow and similar citadels 
that held India in the Mutiny. Let us also “hold the 
fort!” Victory is nearer than we know. Faith turns 
the tide of battle. Discouragement always implies that 
we are looking away from Christ to self or circum- 


5 


stances or results. “He shall not fail nor be discour- 
aged”; then why should we be? 

3. But perhaps the most common method of attack 
is by subtle strategy. Sin is made to seem attractive 
and innocent and its consequences of small importance. 
Think how different sin looks before and after it is 
committed! How different as seen from the tempter’s 
point of view and from God’s. Temptation is suggested 
as “good for food,” as a “delight to the eyes,” and “to 
be desired to make one wise.” But after the fall the 
hideous lie stands out in its true colors as the “lust of 
the flesh,” “the lust of the eyes,” and “the pride of life.” 
Instead of the promised “food” one finds the disgust 
of satiety; the “delight to the eyes” gives place to the 
shame of sin; and, instead of wisdom, man finds folly, 
suffering and misery. Human history has been one 
long disillusionment of a prodigal humanity feeding 
on husks. Once and for ever, every temptation, whether 
sudden or persistent or subtle, is at bottom a lie. The 
safeguard for a credulous humanity is to know the 
truth, and the truth shall make us free. “Whosoever 
sinneth hath not seen Him neither knoweth Him.” To 
know Christ as He is, and to know sin as sin, will rob 
it of all attractiveness, and will make it repulsive, 
hideous, impossible. 


THREE CAUSES OF DEFEAT. 


In visiting the ruins of an old Mohammedan fort in 
Western India, one may see three great walls of defence 
and three gates, one within the other. Knowing that 
these gates would be the most likely points of attack, 
the builder of this fort had constructed the fortifications 
so that his guns were trained and his greatest force 
massed at these three points. It suggests the three 
points at which sin attempts to force an entrance into 
the citadel of the heart. We might call these three 
gateways “Unbelief,” “Little sins,” and “Besetting sin.” 

1. The outer gate, first to be attacked, yet, if held, 
guarding all the others from assault, is “Faith,” and its 
opening Unbelief. Entrance is given by the expectation 
that we are going to fall. It is the casting away of our 
confidence that we shall be more than conquerors 
through Christ. Fear opens the gate of unbelief. How 
often the deep-seated expectation of failure, born of 
discouragement, is itself the cause of defeat. The army 
that expects to be beaten usually is beaten; and the 
Christian who expects to fall does fall. How often we 
hurry into the day without our armor on, without 
communion, in careless self-confidence, or in the half 
expectation of failure, or distracted by the rush of 
work, only to fall an easy prey to temptation. If we 
stopped and asked ourselves the question, “Do I really 


7 


expect God to keep me from sin today?” would not our 
lack of expectation simply expose our lack of faith in 
God? And according to our faith so is our victory or 
defeat. A day thus begun must end with the cry of 
Rom. vii. “Oh, wretched man that I am!” But a day 
begun in the faith of Rom. viii. will end in its pean of 
victory, “We are more than conquerors, through Him.” 
The experience of these two chapters is different, be- 
cause the method of meeting temptation is different. 
In Rom. vii. “I” occurs more than thirty times, the 
Holy Spirit not once. In Rom. viii. the “I” is all gone: 
it only occurs twice—“I reckon” and “I am persuaded” 
(that nothing shall separate us from Him). But the 
Holy Spirit is mentioned sixteen times! In Rom. vii. 
it is “I struggle, I fight, I fail.’ In Rom. viii. it is 
“The Spirit of Life made me free,” “makes to die the 
deeds of the body,” “helpeth our infirmity’—‘“we are 
more than conquerors!” Am [I living in the experience 
of Rom. vii. or of Rom. viii? If in the former, it is 
probably because I am not guarding my outer gate of 
Unbelief. Remove the false sentinel, fear. Let faith 
stand guard, “and the peace of God shall guard your 
heart and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.” Have faith 
in God. 

2. Little Sins, so called, open the second gate of 
the citadel of the heart. We may have massed all our 
forces of resolution and prayer against our besetting 


8 


sin, but a frontal attack is not made there at once. The 
first temptation has apparently no connection with this 
sin. But once our outer rampart of faith is surrendered, 
once our second wall of righteousness is broken down 
enough to admit a single enemy by a permitted “little 
sin,” then sin has access to the whole inner fortification, 
and it will not be long until, to our surprise and shame, 
we have fallen again at our weakest point. 

Another fort in India stands on an almost impreg- 
nable precipice. By a device known to the besiegers 
they passed a rope over the weakest point of the fortifi- 
cations, the chieftain climbed the wall, opened the great 
gate a few inches, passed the drowsy sentinel, and 
admitted his followers, armed to the teeth, who fell 
upon the sleeping garrison. How many a heart has 
fallen thus! One sin, permitted and unconfessed, gives 
sin standing room in our lives, and there will be con- 
stant conflict and frequent defeat until we regain our 
lost defence by returning to God with our whole heart. 
What we hate naturally is the shame and pain of the 
result of our besetting sin; what God hates is sin, any 
sin, all sin. Happy the man who has learned to hate 
sin as God hates it, and who has surrendered his whole 
heart to God, and trusts Him to keep it whole. 

A man of God once said: “Yesterday I found myself 
sinning by a single look and thought. Instantly I lifted 
my heart and said, ‘Lord Jesus, the blood!’ Had I 


9 


not done so, there would have settled on my heart a 
germ of sin which would have spread, until, days later, 
I would have found myself sinning in a totally differ- 
ent way, perhaps in a manner that would have sur- 
prised and disgusted me.” He had learned the secret 
of the wise man of old, “Keep thy heart above all that 
thou guardest, for out of it are the issues of life. Let 
thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look 
straight before thee. Weigh carefully the path of thy 
feet, and let all thy ways be established.” It is only 
one weak link in the chain which loses the ship; it is 
only a little hole in the dyke that one day lets in the 
destructive flood. “It is the little rift within the lute, 
that one day makes the music mute.” At Waterloo, 
as man after man fell in the English squares, the order 
repeatedly came to “close up.” By keeping always a 
solid front, never allowing the enemy an entrance into 
their ranks, the day was won. It is the same order 
that comes to us from the Word of God. “Neither 
give place to the devil” (Eph. iv. 27). The way to get 
victory over great sins is to ask God to make us 
sensitive to so-called “little sins.’ May God show us 
the danger and sinfulness of all sin, and fill us with a 
passionate longing for a holy life. 

3. A third source of danger and point of attack is 
that of our Besetting Sin, and one cause of our defeat 
is in regarding this as a necessary infirmity, a natural 


10 


weakness, an inherited tendency that perhaps must be 
yielded to to some extent. But it is possible, divinely 
possible, to become strongest through and through at 
our weakest point. When Doctor Hopkins was once 
provoked to a humiliating outburst of his besetting sin 
of temper, he returned to his home and spent the night 
in prayer. He once for all so appropriated the victory 
of Christ, counting himself henceforth dead to sin, and 
then so continuously depended upon Him, that thirty 
years afterwards he was able to state that no tempta- 
tion had ever betrayed him to anger and loss of temper. 
Asa Mahan, after a long and victorious life, at the age 
of seventy-five, forty years after he had claimed the 
full deliverance that Christ had won for him, said: 
“When the Son of God made me free, I first became 
conscious of absolute control over all promptings to 
anger. The same held true of my appetites. Faith in 
Christ set me free. Whenever I felt a restless cry for 
gratification I separated myself wholly from the objects, 
until, through prayer and the power of Christ, that cry 
was subdued, and I felt myself perfectly free.” 

Professor Bain’s chapter on the Moral Habits, and 
Professor James in his chapter on Habit suggest three 
psychological principles which we may well apply to 
our spiritual life. 


1. “In the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving 


11 


of an old one, we must take care to LAUNCH OURSELVES - 
WITH AS STRONG AND DECIDED AN INITIATIVE AS POSSIBLE.” 

2. “NEVER SUFFER AN EXCEPTION TO oOccUR. Each 
lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which 
one is carefully winding up. It is necessary above 
all things never to lose a battle. It is surprising how 
soon a desire will die of inanition if it is never fed. 
Without unbroken advance there is no such thing as 
accumulation of ethical forces possible.” 

3. SEIZE THE VERY FIRST POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITY TO 
ACT ON EVERY RESOLUTION YOU MAKE and on every 
emotional prompting you may experience in the 
direction of the habits you aspire to gain. Could the 
young but realize how soon they will become mere walk- 
ing bundles of habits, they would give more heed to 
their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spin- 
ning our own fates, good or evil. Every smallest stroke 
of virtue or vice leaves its never so little scar. Noth- 
ing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, “wiped 
out.” Such is the testimony of Psychology. The voice 
of desire may say, “Just once more. It will be for- 
given anyway.” Yes, you may be forgiven, but you 
are not the same man you would have been if you had 
conquered. Why is it that God does not dare to trust 
you with power? Where is the Christlike character, 
the joyous communion, the fruitful service that might 
have been yours today? There is no sin that Christ 


12 


cannot completely conquer in you, at any moment or 
continuously. He bore your besetting sin upon the 
cross that you, having died to sin, might live unto 
righteousness. Will you trust Him? 


THREE TYPICAL TEMPTATIONS. 


We shall find the types of all temptations, as well as 
the typical method of meeting them, in our Lord’s three 
temptations in the wilderness. Let us read St. Matt. iv. 
1-11. Note in the first place that Jesus, who was 
tempted in all points like as we are, was “led up of 
the Spirit to be tempted of the devil.” Here is an 
encouragement. Temptation is God’s appointment. 
There are two words for temptation both in the Old 
and New Testaments. The one means to test or try 
in a good sense, as to separate the gold from the dross 
in metals. The other means to allure, to seduce to evil 
by an enemy. The same temptation, as the Bishop of 
Durham points out, may be a call from God upwards 
to purify us from dross, and a call from Satan down- 
ward to debase us. Every temptation is a positive 
opportunity for character. We must fight something 
if we would grow strong. The corals that grow in the 
sheltered lagoon are weak; those that fight the surf, 
though broken in their own strength, are formed into 
solid rock. Temptation shows the weak point; it 
drives us to God, and thus is a means of blessing. And 


13 


hence, though we must pray to be delivered from the 
Evil One, we may nevertheless count it all joy to fall 
into manifold temptations, knowing that the proving 
of our faith leaves the pure gold of character. The 
time of discouragement and of fiercest conflict is, if 
we but turn the tide of temptation by prayer, the time 
of greatest opportunity. It is then that character is 
won. 

1. The First Temptation of Christ was (1) to doubt 
God, and (2) to satisfy a bodily appetite wrongfully. 
It was almost an exact repetition of the temptation to 
the first Adam and to every son of Adam since. It was 
an attack upon humanity at its weakest point, and it 
was a type of our most common and most powerful 
temptations. Our one source of victory is our union 
with God by faith, and therefore it is Satan’s chief 
aim to destroy this union, to undermine this faith, to 
insinuate a doubt against the goodness of God. He 
insinuates a “Hath God said?” into the innocent ear 
of Eve. He whispers an “Jf Thou art the Son of God.” 
And so to us he suggests a doubt, he interposes an 
“if” between us and every precious promise of Scrip- 
ture. Against all this the Master cries, “Have faith in 
God.” It was His constant protest to His doubting dis- 
ciples and to a faithless generation. He did not reprove 
them because they did not work enough, but because 
they would not trust their God. Let us cease to doubt 


14 


God, and to drag down the promises to the level of our 
own experience. 

It is significant that our Lord’s first temptation, as 
Adam’s, was to the body. If He who was without sin 
was attacked here, at humanity’s weakest point, how 
much more shall we be who are in “the body of sin’? 
If even St. Paul had to buffet his body, to fight it as 
an antagonist in a life-and-death combat, lest he 
should become a castaway, is it not imperative for us 
to do likewise? Alas! how many who might be victors 
in the fight, who might be mightily used by God to 
others, are today castaways from the full power of 
God’s service, living weak and useless lives! If we do 
not get the victory here over temptation alone in the 
wilderness, we shall not be led up in the power of the 
Spirit to do any great work for Him in public. Will 
God entrust the pure water of life, if He is to offer it 
to a thirsty soul, to a vessel that is unclean? “If a 
man purge himself, he shall be a vessel unto honor, 
ready for the Master’s use.’ Am JI ready? The pure in 
heart see God. Do I? Does He dare to trust me with 
much power? 

When the call came in a recent war for British troops 
to go to the front, hundreds of men were pronounced 
“unfit for service,’ because their dishonored bodies 
were not strong enough to stand the strain of war. It 
was a stain upon the honor of the army. But think 


18 


of the shame, the bitter, bitter shame, upon the army 
of Christ that thousands are “unfit for service,” rejected 
by a holy God because they are not fit to be the temples 
of the Holy Spirit. “Know ye not that your bodies 
are members of Christ?” Think of it: your body is a 
member of Christ. Glorify God therefore in your body. 
Be not deceived. If you sow to your flesh, you cannot 
reap a spiritual harvest, nor have power in service. 
David falls in the moment of temptation, and though 
forgiven, is a heart-broken man, cast away for life 
from his former power and service. St. Paul stands 
in the storm, and is mightily used to the blessing of 
multitudes. What was the difference? It was not that 
David did not struggle hard enough in the moment of 
temptation. But we find that David, who had once 
met God’s enemies with the ruddy glow of joyous 
conflict upon his face, “tarried behind at Jerusalem. 
And at eventide he arose from off his bed” to the life 
of luxury and of pampered selfishness into which he 
had fallen. It was not the moment’s look merely, but 
months of fleshly living, that caused his fall. “Thou 
art the man!” Do you eat and drink to the glory of 
God? Do you exercise yourself unto godliness, and 
bring every thought into captivity to Christ? Do you 
buffet your body and bring it under, as the apostle 
Paul did, or do you pamper it, as David did? Will 
you not today fall at His feet, confess your sin and 


16 


your utter inability to save yourself, and present your 
body a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to Him, 
henceforth to be His dwelling-place and temple, that 
He may mightily use you for His glory? 

2. The Second Temptation was to cast Himself 
down from the temple. The temptation was in essence 
(1) to tempt God and (2) to gain the favor of man. 
The first temptation had been to doubt God, to hold 
back in unbelief. The second was to go beyond the 
will of God in rash presumption. It is typical of Chris- 
tian experience. At first we are held back by gross 
temptations to sin, but if we break away from these 
our next temptation is to go too far, to go off at a 
tangent from the circle of God’s truth, to be side- 
tracked from the main-line of God’s purpose. How sad 
it is that of those who leave the lower level of defeat 
in their own personal lives, so many are taken captive 
in some peculiar doctrine. They can always prove their 
doctrine by the letter of Scripture: but we need to 
grasp the principle underlying Christ’s words—‘“Again 
it is written.’ We must take the whole of Scripture 
and get the full orb of truth, and not go to the Bible 
for proof-texts of some preconceived doctrine. Prob- 
ably no other one thing, save sin, has led so many 
people astray from the central path of truth, as taking 
the surface letter of God’s Word, instead of its spirit, 
in the full sweep of its whole teaching. The letter 


17 


killeth. It always will; and nothing can more destroy 
your usefulness than to make you the prophet of some 
petty half-truth or outword form, and divert you from 
the great essentials of Christian unity, usefulness and 
service. Could you fairly be called a “crank,” revolving 
about some peculiar doctrine or extreme view always 
emphasizing some one side of truth? Beware lest we 
cast ourselves down from the temple in apparent faith, 
upon the letter of Scripture, only to bring reproach 
upon our Master’s cause, instead of waiting in secret 
for God to reveal His “Again it is written.” 

3. The Third Temptation was (1) to be independent 
of God, and (2) to use wrong means and worldly 
power, and thus to gain the world without losing His 
life at the cross. But the end does not justify the 
means. To accomplish God’s end we must use His 
means, in His time and by His power. In the energy 
of the flesh we may build up an imposing structure of 
wood, hay, and stubble. We may gather statistics, we 
may keep a vast machine running, we may do an 
immense amount of work. But only the will of God, 
and he that doeth it abides; and every plant which He 
planteth not shall be rooted up. We do not need the 
favor of men but the power of God; Christ’s kingdom 
is advanced, not by human influence, but by Divine 
power. 


If we note the characteristics of the three temptations, 


18 


we find that the first was to depend on the means only, 
instead of on God; the second was to depend on God 
and despise the means; the third was to be independent 
of God and to use wrong means. 

Again, let us note that Jesus was tempted when He 
was alone. It was also when He was filled with the 
Spirit. And it was before a great spiritual opportunity. 

Again, each temptation was at bottom a lie. Each 
was an appeal to sight to undermine faith. Each was a 
suggestion to hurry, to take some short cut instead of 
God’s way of the cross, and of patient waiting. Each 
began with an if of doubt and was aimed to break His 
dependence upon God. 

And let us notice how our Lord met them. He fell 
back each time upon God, instead of fighting in His 
own strength. Each time He did not argue, or linger, 
or look, or listen. He turned at once to God, and 
trusted Him for instant and decisive victory. Each 
time He used “the Sword of the Spirit,’ and thrice 
repulsed the adversary with the “It is written” of God’s 
Word. And He conquered there for us. Shall we not 
tarry with Him in the wilderness until we can return in 
the power of the spirit to the work that awaits us? 


THREE PROVISIONS FOR Our VICTORY. 


1. The Purpose of the Father—We have traced the 
method of the approach of temptation, the causes of 


19 


our failure, and the secret of Christ’s victory. If we 
are to overcome, we must be convinced of the possibility 
and sufficient provision for our victory; we must know 
the truth if it is to make us free: we must apprehend 
clearly the Divine provision and the human condition 
of victory over sin, or what is God’s part and what 
is man’s part in the conflict. Nothing can give us 
greater confidence and courage than the deep convic- 
tion that it is the purpose and plan of the Father that 
we should have full victory. “For this is the will of 
God, even your sanctification. . . . . Therefore he 
that rejecteth rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth 
His Holy Spirit unto you” (to carry out His purpose in 
us). And what God has purposed “He is able to per- 
form.” “He is able to make all grace abound unto you, 
that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything,” may 
have victory over every temptation. “He is able to save 
to the uttermost” every tempted man. “He is able to 
keep you from falling, to guard you from stumbling.” 
“He is able to make the weak brother stand.” And 
God asks of you, “Believe ye that I am able to do this” 
for you? If God is for us, who is against us? Ah! 
thanks be to God, here is our ground of confidence and 
victory. It is the will of God. “He is able.” “He will 
do it.” (See Eph. i. 4; 1 Thess. iv. 4; iii. 8; v. 23; 2 Cor. 
ix. 8; Heb. vii. 25; Jude 24.) 


2. The Provision of the Son.—Jesus came to earth 


20 


not merely to offer forgiveness for sins, but to “save 
His people from their sins.” Speaking of sin, He said: 
“Tf the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free 
indeed.” Does “free indeed” mean slavery, defeat and 
shame? St. Paul is able to re-echo the shout of 
triumph, “Being, therefore, made free from sin.” 

For the Apostle Peter also the cross stood between 
him and sin. As he saw its purpose, he counted him- 
self dead to sin. He had probably stood beneath the 
cross, and had seen His Master die in patient agony 
for him. It broke his heart. From that day forward 
between him and every sin there rose the vision of 
the cross, with his Master upon it, hanging, as it were, 
in eternal protest against sin. To sin against’ Him 
seemed like betraying Him afresh; it was like driving 
again the nails into His pierced hand, as he had seen 
them driven at the cross, when every blow seemed to 
fall upon his own heart. Did he try to curry favor 
with the Pharisees who had crucified his Lord, on the 
way back from the cross? Did he go back to deny his 
Master and live on in sin? He seemed to have died 
with Christ in that long agony, and in the ever-present 
memory and meaning of that cross he wrote: “Who 
His own self bare our sins in His own body upon the 
tree, that we having died to sins, might live unto right- 
eousness.” Henceforth he was dead to sin. St. Paul 
did not witness Christ’s death, yet he entered into its 


21 


purpose and power by faith. He realized after years 
of fruitless effort and failure that Christ had died for 
him; that he, as it were, had died with Him and in 
Him; that the purpose of Christ’s death was that he 
should henceforth count himself dead to sin, and by 
faith he cried: “I have been crucified with Christ; 
Christ liveth in me. I live by faith.’ Here was the 
whole secret of his victory—and of ours. If by faith 
I grasp the meaning of the cross, I will count myself 
dead to sin, separated from its power by a great gulf, 
hell deep, heaven high. Does the world allure? I am 
dead to it. Does the “flesh” cry out for gratification? 
It was conquered and crucified at the cross, and reckon- 
ing it dead will render it dead so long as I abide in 
Christ (Rom. vi. 6, 11; Gal. v. 21; vi. 14). Do I fear 
sin as its slave? Nay, I am free; I am dead to it—as 
dead to it, though fiercely tempted, as the dead body 
of Christ, so long, and only so long, as I abide in Him. 
You are a free man! Whether you believe it or not, 
whether you appropriate it or not, if you only knew 
it, you are free. In the Civil War in America many 
slaves set free at awful cost lived on and died as 
slaves—slaves who might have been free if they had 
only known or cared. But oh, the shame and sorrow 
that we, redeemed by Christ’s precious blood, in spite 
of the purpose and provision of the Father and the 
finished work of the Son, live on as slaves! All that 


22 


God has purposed, Christ has provided. Will you accept 
it? We died to sin. Reckon on the fact (St. Matt. i. 
20--ote ohn vill, S071 Pet. 11/124 +) Gals 11.20): 

3. The Power of the Spirit—‘If by the Spirit ye 
make to die the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” “The 
law of the Spirit made me free from the law of sin.” 
(Rom. viii. 13; Gal. v. 15, 23.) The Spirit lives in us 
to give us victory over sin. All that God has purposed, 
all that Christ has provided, the Spirit empowers us to 
appropriate. All that God planned concerning us, and 
all that Christ did for us on the cross, the Spirit does 
in us here and now. God declared us free; the Son 
made us free; the Spirit keeps us free. The Father 
commands us to be holy; the Son died that we might 
be holy; the Spirit lives in us to make us holy. The 
whole Trinity is in league with us! The Spirit helpeth 
our infirmity. Here is the missing link of our experi- 
ence. Have we reckoned on this mighty Helper? 

It is possible to so overemphasize the human condi- 
tions and magnify our inability or the improbability of 
our fulfilling them, that we virtually make provision 
for the flesh, and deliberately expect to sin. We say 
with the ten spies, “We are not able.” “But the ten 
spies looked at God through the difficulties, while the 
two looked at the difficulties through God.” 

Oh, that the Holy Spirit would so convict us that we 
could see sin as God sees it! Think of the enormity of 


23 


sin! Every time I sin, I sin against the plan and pur- 
pose of God for my life; I sin afresh against my 
Saviour, who died to save me from sin; I grieve the 
Holy Spirit, who dwells within my heart to keep me 
from sin; I stain and mar and weaken my own charac- 
ter; I break my communion with God, and put a 
cloud between me and my Father’s face; I lose power 
in service, and destroy, so far, my ability to help my 
fellow-men. I may be forgiven, but I reap what I 
sow, and I am not the man I might have been if I had 
not sinned. If I really knew the deadly nature of sin, 
I would rather die than sin. 


THREE CONDITIONS OF VICTORY. 


1. Surrender.—It has been said that if there is any 
failure in the Christian life, it will lie at one of three 
points—imperfect surrender, inadequate faith, or broken 
communion. Come to God with the prayer, “Search me, 
O God, and know my heart,” and ask Him to show you 
. the cause of failure in the past. Then get right with 
God. Make a complete consecration of your life to 
Him—body, mind, and spirit. Yield to God not only 
every known sin, but every doubtful thing, every weight 
and hindrance, for whatever is not of faith is sin. 
Blessing came to one man, and a new life of power and 
peace, through the giving up of two doubtful things 
in his life. One permitted sin, one doubtful practice, 


24 


one thing in the life unsurrendered, may keep us in 
constant turmoil and defeat. Is there anything you are 
unwilling to yield to Him? 

Before the great building of the Young Men’s Chris- 
tian Association was built in Madras, when land had 
been purchased, the plans prepared, and the means 
provided for the entire structure, two native shopkeepers 
owning tiny houses in the middle of the site refused 
to sell, and demanded an exorbitant sum. Finally, a 
cyclone levelled the shops to the ground; and believing 
it was God’s judgment, they at last gave a deed— 
“signed, sealed, and delivered to give quiet and undis- 
turbed possession” of the property. Then the great 
building rose according to the architect’s plan. In 
how many a life the plan of God is delayed and 
thwarted because of dark hovels in the heart, places of 
traffic with sin, which will not surrender! 

Oh, yield today, and let the sunlight in; let the 
mighty plan be carried out as you give quiet and undis- 
turbed possession to Him who has redeemed you unto 
God. The grandest church in India stands on the site 
of a former idol temple: but not until the last idol- 
worshipper had surrendered himself to God, not until 
they had destroyed every idol, and razed the building 
to the ground, could the great temple of God be built. 
“My little children, guard yourselves from idols.” 

Once we have yielded to God we must maintain the 


25 


attitude of surrender.» We must bring every thought 
into captivity to the obedience of Christ. It is here 
that most fail. Sin is born in thought, and it is here 
that the victory must be won. “As a man thinketh in 
his heart so is he.’ Modern psychology tells us that 
“all thought tends to action,” and “all character origi- 
nates in thought.” But it is not only that evil thought 
leads to sin in action, but the thought itself is sin; and 
until we recognize it and hate it, and get the victory here 
there is no victory for us. Whoso looketh with thought 
of sin, whoever harbors pride, or envy or hate in the 
heart, though in act he is as faultless as a Pharisee, 
may yet be a whited sepulchre. Make it the fixed 
rule of your life to bring the first thought of sin at 
once to Christ, and the peace of God shall garrison 
your heart and your thoughts in Christ Jesus (Phil. iv. 
7). “What gets your attention gets you.” On the 
human side “victory over temptation depends on the 
ability to hold the attention firmly fixed on the higher 
considerations”; it is looking unto Jesus that is victory. 

2. Faith—“This is the victory that overcometh the 
world, even our faith.’ Faith is the victory; for faith 
is an attitude of dependence, a living relationship with 
God which excludes sin. Faith is reckoning on the 
faithfulness of God. It is believing that God tells 
the truth. The eye of faith is never fixed upon itself, 
for faith’s power is in its object, not in itself. It is 


26 


the feeble hand of the child placed within the mighty 
grasp of the Father. Sarah’s faith “counted Him faith- 
ful who had promised,” and Abraham was “assured 
that what He had promised He was able also to per- 
form.” Do you trust God for victory? Whatsoever 
is not of faith is sin. The attitude of unbelief itself 
is sin. Have faith in God. Can you not trust Him? 
Can He not keep you? 

_A color-sergeant who had advanced ahead of his 
company was deserted by his retreating comrades. He 
refused to retreat, and stood firm on the ground which 
the general had commanded them to hold. He refused 
to bring the colors back to the regiment, but waited 
for the regiment to come up to the colors. Do not let 
your faith retreat to the low level of your experience. 
Stand upon the promises by faith, and hold your ground 
till your experience comes up to your faith. When a 
young man, whose life was strong in victory and who 
has since laid down his life in Africa, was asked the 
secret of his success and how he met temptation, he 
said: “When I am tempted I just say, ‘Dead! I am dead 
to sin.’ This was settled at the cross. I will not look 
nor argue, nor open the question. Christ’s cross has 
made an absolute break between me and sin. And when 
I reckon on the fact it works, and I am free.” Ah, yes, 
it works. Faith makes it a fact. Reckon, therefore, on 
the fact of the cross and the faithfulness of God. Say 


27 


with St. Paul, in the» darkness of tempest and ship- 
wreck, “I believe God.” 


“Oh, for faith that brings the triumph, 
When defeat seems strangely near, 
Oh, for faith that changes fighting 
Into victory’s ringing cheer; 
Faith triumphant, knowing not defeat or fear.” 


3. Communion.—‘He that abideth in Him sinneth 
not.” This is the whole secret. If you fall, it is not 
usually because you do not struggle hard enough at the 
moment of temptation, but because the moment before 
and perhaps for days before, you were not abiding in 
Him. Here, again, it is not the act only that is sin. 
Not abiding is sin, and from it springs all sin. Com- 
munion with God alone furnishes the motive for vic- 
tory, reveals sin in its loathsome repulsiveness, and is 
a channel for the power of God to conquer sin. If we 
fight in our own strength we shall fail, if we walk 
alone we shall fall. 

Christ’s presence is the expulsive power of a new 
affection. Sin is caused by a narrowing of conscious- 
ness to that which is evil. To overcome it we need to 
widen our consciousness to take in the good, or else 
to concentrate it upon that which has the greatest 
expulsive force in our life. Make every temptation an 
occasion for victory. In advance, connect every special 
temptation with that which is most likely to drive it 


28 


out. We are already bundles of habits or reflexes; 
then let us add one more. Just as you set your mind 
to wake at a certain hour or to do something at a cer- 
tain time, settle it in your heart beforehand that with 
your besetting temptation you will connect that thought, 
or better, that act which has the greatest dynamic, ex- 
pulsive power over evil. It may be by prayer or the 
reading of certain passages of God’s Word, or a certain 
thought of Christ—whatever it is, beforehand rivet this 
connection in thought, so that each temptation may be 
an opportunity to be more than conqueror. Thus you 
may overcome evil with good. Greater is the expulsive 
power of Christ than that of heredity or habit or sin. 
There is a psychology of sin and a psychology of vic- 
tory. Face: your temptation and find just where and 
when and why you have fallen. Then in advance find 
the way of escape which is always yours in Christ. 
Communion is the secret of victory. A half hour of 
communion in the morning will save an hour of con- 
fession at night. Perhaps the surest safeguard against 
sin is the time for communion at the beginning of each 
day. To meet Christ over His word, to read the Bible, 
not as an irksome habit, nor from a sense of duty, but 
to really feed upon it, to drink from it as a very foun- 
tain of living water, is the surest preventive of sin. 
It is like being inoculated or vaccinated beforehand to 
destroy the contagion or infection of sin throughout 


29 


the day. “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I 
might not sin against Thee.’ Have you the regular 
habit of meeting Him each morning in real communion, 
as He speaks to you through His word, and you speak 
to Him in prayer? If not, this alone is a sufficient 
cause of all your failure. Henceforth, this one thing 
I do: I will give to God the first place in each day and 
in all my life. I will begin each day in communion 
with Him, and then by that constant faith-touch, which 
reckons upon His mighty, restful presence, even when 
I am occupied with my daily task, I will trust Him to 
keep what I have committed unto Him, for 


“He that abideth in Him sinneth not.” 


30 


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